Another Christmas past...

It's 10 PM. The glisten of this Christmas is only a new memory, no... not really just a memory at this point, as I sit here and look around the room and debate on how I am ever going to get this cleaned up! The kids had a blast this year, as Katie put's it... "mom, it's the best Christmas EVER!!".. Well, the house certainly shows it! It was a wonderful day, full of laughter and enjoyment- and the house is certainly holding that wonderful Christmas memory!

The kids all let mom and dad sleep in, actually getting us up by coming into our room and screaming "MOM! DAD! Santa was HEREEEE!!" So with that, we all gathered in the living room. Santa must have had to cut back this year because the gifts "were not colored coordinated per child" like they were in the past years - they actually had to read the tags! Think it stopped them? NOPE! It's amazing to watch the kids open all of the gifts that the elves wrap. I bet those elves spend at least an hour and a half just wrapping everything my kids get, and I don't think it even took 15 minutes for all of the flying wrapping paper to fall all about the living room. The most exciting part of opening the gifts are the wide eyes that come out with the "oh's and AHH's.

I was a little more easy going this year, actually laughing at the things the kids were "attempting". I remember years where if they would have even thought about thinking about doing some of the things done today I would have probably pulled my hair out and would have been a wreck! Okay, I think at this point I need to explain.... :O) LOL

"Aunt Tana and Uncle Dan" were ever so kind as to give gifts to my children last night... LOL.. Gifts that if they were younger I would have died from thinking about them playing with. Can you just imagine a house, gifts coming home that are unopened.. Mom putting the gifts under the tree and finding TWO BIG BAGS of miniature MARSHMALLOWS? Curiousity get ya yet? :O) It got me until the gifts were opened right before the kids floating off to bed. Then I am thinking Okay.. It all made sense now.

Ok, the kids recieved marshmallow guns... Ha ha ha.. Actually I really wish I could come up with some funny sayings here or something.. But I made them at least wait till this morning to open them. After all of the fun from santa, curious minds wanted to shoot marshmallows.. so we opened the packages, (of course us parents had to test them out to make sure they all worked, firing mashmallows and green foam balls all around the house!)filled all of the guns with marshmallows and sent them to the back yard to shoot away. Now, the inmates were in the back yard with the dogs(Bandit, the big black Stallion, err, Retriever, and Jackie the nonstop barking ankle biter) which at the time could not figure out what in this world the kids were shooting off. While Steven and Bree kept running into the house to refill, Katie was out there picking them off the ground and refilling, making it faster to actually shoot the dogs and the kids when the kids came out of the house. After a while, the dogs started figuring out "Hey, I CAN eat this and not get in trouble"(which I may have to utilize this "tool" and bring the dogs in.. It may make cleanup in the house faster!), the snowlike appearance of the back yard began to fade into a memory. The kids laughter was mindboggling, and made you laugh right along with them.

Shortly after, I called my parents to see when they were coming out just so we could get a feel for when to bring the kids in and reload to the hilt the guns. Mom called on the way... she was in on our little "sneak attack" that was planned for their dear Grandfather... which I hope he understood was set up JUST FOR HIM... LOL. The wait for the car to pull up into the driveway seemed like forever as the kids were all anxiously lined up in front of the front door with thier eyes and ears living to hear "Okay, they are in the drive" while all of the giggles and the dancing of thier eyes shown all of the fun they were having - popping the guns off when the signal to "GO GO GO !!!" from Steven was echoed through the livingroom. Off they went!!! And in only seconds Grandpa was trying to shake a marshmallow from the inside of his shirt... (I was laughing so hard I can't remember if he was even laughing!) All the while, feeling the happiness of the kids that I actually let them go out and bombard Grandpa was actually pretty cool... They were having a ball, and I was actually letting them.

While putting the kids to bed, I scanned the house... only to see little green foam balls and little miniature marshmallows scattered here, there and everywhere, even small little piles hiden in certain areas of the house as "the secret stash of ammo". I am still laughing, shaking my head and thinking I may have to give them another bag and send them outside tomorrow just so I can find my house. Hope the weather's not toooooo bad? Hey it's Ohio, the weather will change, just give it 5 minutes!

So, If you need a good practical joke, need a good laugh, get one of these guns, fill it to get the most out of it, and have fun doing it. I am almost positive my neighbors all thought we had too much Egg Nog last night... I know the dogs thought we were nuts for turning them out in the back yard with them.

Merry Christmas everyone!!! Enjoy what we have left of '08!

Notmedidit Monday

Okay Rachel(proud owner of http://justmythoughts-momof3.blogspot.com/), I don't think I can outdo your notmedidit blog, but I thought it looked fun... I have to try it.

My Monday began with me not sleeping in because the kids slept in too. I did not sleep in because the bed was nice and warm, did not sleep in because the house was so cold that the blankets were a comfort!

I didn't tell the kids they could jump on the bed when they awoke. I did not get out of bed and think of that peanut butter cookie dough that I really needed to bake before DH left out for work! No none of that even occured to me.

I wasn't curious when my father called to say they wanted to stop over a short while. And I was'nt astonished when they brought in a load full of groceries that I could not understand if they knew how much it would help our family. I did not cry when they left. I don't have tears in my eyes now telling everyone how much I cannot tell my parents how much that meant.

I did not get excited when my youngest daughter's nose started bleeding in the van. I didn't call DH on the way to work, did not get hysterical when she had both of her hands full of blood. What was amazing is I really did not care if the doctor thought I was crazy for taking her to her office before her nurse called me to tell me to bring her in. That was my baby, and I wanted her to be safe!

I did not almost cry when they had to put a needle in her arm and draw blood! Not me... I am the strong one in this family.

I was not astonished with my children after they actually helped me clean up the house (or stayed out of my way! LOL) and they did not really clean their rooms.

I really wonder why Santa would come early and switch children on me. This is a bad joke! And I want to know when Santa is coming back to switch them again because I think I like the fighting and I really want the old kids back that wouldnot do anything!

And I really wish I would wake up from this dream! I can't believe Santa would play a horrible joke like this!

Christmas cookies

Ahhhhh... there's nothing better than the aroma coming from the kitchen of all the noisy electric toys! I especially love the smell of the results that the noisy toys make when baked! Then of course, you have to make some that you can actually stand around and say, ahh poor thing don't look like the others! Just so you can taste what you have delightfully smelled ALL DAY LONG!

And yes, I was in the kitchen ALL DAY LONG, only with small breaks to see what all of the other friends were up to.

We started with a batch of peanut butter fudge, chocolate chip cookies, butterscotch cookies, russian teacakes (snowballs), Spritz, made the dough for peanut butter cookies and peanut butter kissed cookies, 7 layer cookie bar, and then one I have not attempted for years- sugar cookies. We had to finish the sugar cookies in the process of making dinner, which was fun! Put a couple of cookie trays in, fill them up, put them in the fridge, wait until dinner baked, then pull them out and bake the other 3 trays.

At first the girls were excited to help out, then after they saw how much work it took, they would periodically come check in, usually when a new batch of cookies came out! Hubby would of course come in and exclaim while picking up a few cookies "what?! they were calling my name!" he had to run up to Circle K to get milk and he was telling one of the people up there that there is nothing like having home baked cookies for Christmas, and that he would find that out when he gets married! Ha ha ha ha Now that's funny!

Well, I made all of the favs.... I had to finish up baking on Monday night. I still have to make frosting for the sugar cookies, but I can do that while DH is sleeping, after he gets off his shift because the girls are gung ho on helping with the icing part. The thing I remember and loved the most is all the prep work that went right around the special magical Christmas day... setting the tree, baking cookies, wrapping gifts. So, for the girls to be gung ho on helping - that's special to me because I am passing all of the special things to my kids. I hope they learn how to do what I am doing, I hope they pass it to thier children, and I hope they have all of the special memories about what baking cookies means.

I am helping them to make special memories.. and to me that's what matters most. Christmas magic- sometimes one person maybe the whole family suffers if that Christmas magic is somehow lost!

Last Day of Sanity

The last day of sanity has arrived... the kids will be home from school soon. I will be leaving soon to pick up Steven, making sure I go to his locker to grab anything he don't need in there and to see what supplies I need to replenish.

Yes, 2:40 today the insanity begins. At least I have things around the house to help keep them entertained. The girls have their dvd/vcr they can watch movies on while playing in their room, they also color alot but since Brianna does not know what she can draw on they cannot color in their rooms. They also have a nintendo 64 to play, along with the DS's. Ahhh the room situation... we really need to get that room organized and kept clean!

Steven has the xbox and his DS. I also put together a new computer (really new to them, it's a p2!) and it actually has internet too... so he can do homework on it, play runescape and they can work on fun educational games to help keep them up with learning while they are off for the 2 weeks for the holidays. I am looking at hauling the computer out to the dining area and seeing what I can do about a computer stand that is smaller than what we have just because it is so big! It is a wonderful table that dad made, but awful big, and the monitor is all the way up on top so it's difficult to see. I want to see what the kids are doing on the computer too... especially with the internet on. I also need to put parental controls on it. The best part is that when the kids are in bed and Jeff does not work he can play on it also if moved to the dining room.

Tonight and tomorrow night we have Christmas parties, so I have set Sunday aside for all day baking. I am hoping to get some sugar cookies made, one cookie I really dread making, though so easy to do! I have a couple different cookies we need to make. Usually we make chocolates too, but with a tight budget I can't this year.

So here's to peace and quiet, if only for about 20 more minutes. I enjoy having my kids home, but sometimes it's nice to have peace too!

Redecorating the bathroom

I finally have my bathroom the way I want it! I was trying to figure out what to do with the bottom portion on the bathroom walls. I started out with Eggshell white on the walls, then I had to cut a hole in the wall because we thought we had a leak. Ended up fixing everything, including the hole that we cut with patch, sanded down, primed and painted. From paint to final look I think I may have 15-20 dollars involved in the bathroom project.

Here is a picture after painting...

I was nervous about what I wanted to do next, but I found wallpaper that looked like what I wanted ($8.00 for two rolls- did not even use 1!) and the border I found was fun and colorful ($2.00 used most of what I had) Here's some photos to show the finished product!

It was lots of fun! Took about 4 hours just because it took a while to cut and get things correct behind the commode. I also had to make a trip to get Steven from school.

I love my bathroom! I can't wait to get a bath in my cozy decor!

Tina